7/12-14/16 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

It was good to be back after skipping the previous week. After stopping at Marilyn's to pick up a painting she had done, I proceeded on and arrived at Camp Serendipity at noon. After bringing my gear up to the cabin, I found one of the mouse traps sprung and upside down, but no mouse. The peanut bait looked as if it had been nibbled on a little, but I couldn't be sure that it hadn't been that way all along. I was hoping that the trap had gone off spontaneously, maybe because of temperature changes or something.

A little later I noticed something small and white on the floor near the trap and on close inspection I saw that it was a mouse skull. Looking further, I found a tiny mouse leg bone and a mouse tail. It was clear that the trap had indeed killed a mouse but nearly all of the remains had been removed. It had to be ants. I had seen big carpenter ants working on another mouse carcass so I know they can really tear them apart. With me being gone two weeks, they had time to carry everything off except for those few parts I found.

The good news is that I had an ant bait trap sitting right next to the mouse trap so what I think happened is that after carrying off the mouse carcass, the ants must have found that bait, carried it back to their nest, and killed the entire colony. That would explain why I saw no trace of ants. At least that's what I hope happened. Now I just need to figure out how the mice can get in.

After turning on the valve to irrigate Brian and Paul, I walked up and checked on Paul. It grew another half-inch since two weeks ago which I was happy about.

Next I had my lunch and a short nap. When I got up, I brought the wheelbarrow down to the truck to haul the yard waste I had brought with me over to the compost pile. While I was down there, I could see that there were a lot of ripe mountain blackberries in the bushes on both sides of the hairpin turn. I got four sour cream containers and spent an hour or so filling them with really nice blackberries.

Most of the berries were the very first to ripen. They were the big central ones in a clump with a bunch of red berries around them and green ones further back. After picking all the black ones, it looked like there would be two or three times that many when the rest of them ripened. This was amazing good fortune and a far cry from my previous blackberry experience. Back then, I was lucky to get a couple small cream cheese containers full, and the squirrels and rodents ate most of the red berries before they could ripen. Now, in this new patch, there was no evidence that any animals at all were taking the berries. Maybe they just haven't found them yet.

After picking the berries, I wheeled all the yard waste from the truck to the compost pile and piled it on.

On Wednesday morning Dave called and we had a great conversation. After breakfast I watered Brian and Paul again and then went to work on the back staircase with the new DeWalt reciprocating saw I had bought. It worked very well on the vertical kerf in the outside stringer and it also helped form the curved sides of the tread notches. It should speed up my work. The saw is cordless so I intend also to use it in the woods for trail maintenance.

After cutting the kerfs, I used the Bulldog with the wood chisel bit to cut the notches in the tread and the stringers. The tread fit pretty well on the first try and I made one refinement before I quit for lunch.

After lunch, I went right back to work on the staircase while it was still in the shade. I got the tread to fit after several refinements, mostly using Rasputin. When it fit properly, I used the new DeWalt cordless drill to drill the holes for the lag screws. I was happy with the way the new drill performed. It is much better than my heavy old Makita drill that is near end of life and can no longer hold much of a charge.

Then while there was just a little shade left, I mixed up a batch of Board Defense and sprayed it on the tread and stringers. Then I went in for a nap for the rest of the afternoon.

On Thursday morning, I turned on the irrigation valve again and I went into the woods to check on all the giant sequoias. They are all doing well.

Then I stained the new tread and lag screwed it in its place in the staircase. After cleaning out my brush, I dragged the next tread blank down from the woodshed and prepared the surfaces by scraping the top, and using the planer to plane the curved bottom and the ends, to chamfer the curved edges, and to form the nose of the tread.

Then I used the third of the new DeWalt tools I had bought, an impact driver, to remove the screws from the next temporary plank tread. It worked great and much better than using a drill.

Next I checked the blackberry patch just to see how many more berries had ripened in the two days since I had picked them. I was surprised to find a lot of them, so I got a big cool-whip container and nearly filled it with nice ripe berries. There are still a lot of red and green berries on the bushes so unless the birds, squirrels, or bears find them, I should get a bunch more next week. After having my lunch, I left for home at 1:15 with my load of berries.